As of 04-10-12, 3,166 persons are on the national wait list for heart transplant.

I remember a time when my mother gifted my father with a hunting dog. Ginger was six months old. She was a beautiful English Setter. Ginger was a Christmas present. We were all so excited. As Christmas day proceeded, out came the cowboy uniforms, cap guns and related paraphernalia.

At one point, my younger brother and I got into a cap gun shootout. During the gunfight, my father noticed that Ginger had left the room. We stopped our activities and set out to find her. To our surprise, our gorgeous hunter was cuddled behind a couch in the library. She was trembling.

My father was concerned. He went to his gun rack, pulled out a shotgun and took ginger outside. Standing on the front lawn, Father removed Ginger’s leash. She obediently sat down beside him. Father loaded the shotgun and fired into the air. Ginger slumped flat down as though shot, which she wasn’t.

Ginger was gun shy. My father returned her to the breeder and suggested she would be a beautiful show dog.

To a degree, I relate to Ginger’s predicament. Instead of gun shy, I am officially doctor-shy and hospital-shy. This is a predicament that besets wait listed patients and recovering patients. In my case, you could splash a little Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on top and really have a mess.

Wait List

My case is not typical. When you are at a clinic, you meet an assortment of patients in differing stages. We all realize that it is to our benefit to be there. But, the doctor-hospital fatigue is unmistakable.

There are several reasons for this predicament. A certain numbness sets in after countless blood draws, innumerable IV injections, many swan ports and all the rest. Eventually, you realize that every orifice of your body has been penetrated in some invasive manner. Combine all those delights with heavy doses of steroids and you begin to wonder exactly who you are.

Once, after waiting two hours for a blood draw at Columbia Presbyterian, a nurse approached me with a big sigh. She tossed her equipment into the lap of my gown. She seemed agitated.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Not really,” she sighed. “I gotta’ draw your blood.”

“Yuh?”

“Well I ain’t too good at it and I don’t like doin’ it.”

This wasn’t exactly how I thought the script would play out. “Want me to show you how?”

“You know, that might be good. Let me close this here curtain.”

First, I scrubbed the point of entry with a sterilized pad, Then, I rubbed the vein at the left interior elbow and made a fist. I moved the needle into the vein. The nurse had tied on a tube. The blood began to flow and she changes the tubes as they filled. She was okay about withdrawing the needle.

Heart transplant patients get hospital fatigue because they are subjected to every possible safety procedure. Unfortunately for me, I had a propensity to feel sick on weekends.

I had such severe pain, that to get me erect, a neighbor had to lift me off the floor.

The Tampa General Transplant Guide and the Columbia Pres Guide list a number of symptoms that could indicate rejection. Anytime these symptoms surface, you must call the transplant center regardless of time. If you fail to call, you are that intimidating term, NON-COMPLIANT.

This is a pretty accurate encounter with the Tampa General Heart Transplant ER on a night I was paralyzed with pain.

At 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I could not take it any more. I called the 24-hour hotline and was instructed to report to the ER. This is absolutely the worst time to be sick. The emergency room overflows on weekends. I was pretty stressed when I arrived. This is how it went.

First, I was to check-in. There were a lot of people waiting to check in. We were in three lines. The check-in counter is staffed with three staff members, but the first receptionist receives a cell phone call and excuses herself before disappearing behind a privacy wall. Her patients shift to the right, making two long lines.

The person at the head of line two is taking an exorbitant amount of time expressing his problem and trying to find his insurance cards. The patient is elderly and clearly frustrated. He drops a cluster of papers from a file folder onto the shiny floor. The papers slide across the island where a person returning from a water cooler unintentionally kicks them. There is a lot of scurrying around but nobody in line three moves to help. We are in the promised land! The receptionist is methodically completing paperwork as he begins to converse with a friend who appears from behind the wall that has apparently swallowed receptionist number one.

I could stand no longer. At a 45-degree angle I slump ahead to the lobby and commandeer an idle wheel chair. I return to the end of line three. Two paper chasers have moved ahead of me. Finally, I reach the front of the line. Phew.

The receptionist excuses himself, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose while facing me! I immediately ask for a mask, but he doesn’t have one.

I contemplate waiting until Monday. I decide to get to the end of line two where the receptionist is not on the cell phone and not engaged in a conversation while checking in patients in. Thankfully, he has masks.

Because the cardiology hot line instructed me to check in and because the nurse told me she would notify the front desk that I was on the way, I expected that registration was a mere formality.

Wrong again!

This dude instructs me to speak up. He has a lot going on. He wants to hear my medical life story, which I tell him is in the computer. I ask him if a nurse from the cardio clinic called. “No sir, not me. Let me ask around.” He arises and heads toward the wall area.

Fortunately, receptionist number one brings herself and her phone out to the receptionist area. My guy chats about a call from cardio. My guy returns.